PM Pierre seeks Canada’s assistance to tackle climate change

Castries (CMC):

Prime Minister Phillip J Pierre said he expects this week’s Caribbean Community (CARICOM)-Canada summit to further enhance the region’s efforts to get the international community to honour their commitments to assist small island developing states (SIDS) deal with the impact of climate change.

Speaking at a news conference at the Hewanorra International Airport as he prepared to attend the October 17-19 summit in Ottawa, Pierre told reporters that he and his CARICOM colleagues would be looking to the North American country to put forward their case on the issue.

“In terms of climate resilience, we know that the world will not meet the 1.5 degrees Celsius in terms of global warming. There are serious issues as it relates to that. We have seen the devastating effect of floods, of droughts, of earthquakes, etc,

“Canada is committed to assist us in this regard. But having said so, the rest of the international world has not met its commitment of the US$100 billion that they promised to give the developing world in terms of climate resilience … or even climate mitigation.

“So hopefully, we think that our traditional friends, like Canada can help stir that level of interest, can help to say to the international world, listen, you are the ones causing the problems … and the science has proved that the developed world are the biggest emitters that cause issues related to climate change.

“So what we hope to get from this summit is … hopefully our issues can be promoted through to the international world,” Pierre told reporters.

He said in terms of finance, a look at the debt profile of the region and of St. Lucia in particular, “you will find we have had to borrow the most after a hurricane.

“There are some countries like Dominica, 97 per cent of their GDP (gross domestic product) was written off by a hurricane. So we are saying you cannot treat us the same way you treat countries as far as development financing is concern.

“We are looking for special and differential treatment. We are looking for loss and damage clauses as far as our borrowing is concerned,” he said, adding “there is a discussion going on that most of our debts should be actually written off, but it is difficult.

“There are different things on the table. There is the Bridgetown Accord that says we have to look for financing that is of a longer term. There is also an accord that says we have to measure our resilience so that you cannot deal with a loan in terms that you can’t measure your resilience to climate shocks. So these are the discussions we intend to have,” Pierre said.